


Afterwards - Episode 6 - The Mirror in The Darkness

by Windjammers



Series: Afterwards [6]
Category: Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 16:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windjammers/pseuds/Windjammers
Summary: An Overunit disguises himself as Captain Power to lure unsuspecting people into Soaron's digitizing beam. When Power is captured and thought to be the traitor, he has to go to extreme measures to convince the townspeople that he is one of the good guys. But what happened afterwards?





	Afterwards - Episode 6 - The Mirror in The Darkness

~*~*~*~*~

Nighttime at the Power Base. After a rather tense day of dealing with his "double" and all the problems he had caused, Jon was enjoying a relaxing moment, one in which his mind was being exercised instead of his body.

"I've got checkmate in four moves," Jennifer stated proudly.

Well, he was enjoying it.

He should have known she would gain the advantage quickly and stealthily. He was matching his tactical wits against someone who was proving to be more of a challenge each time they played. Her prowess at chess was getting quite formidable.

"Four moves?" Jon stared at the monitor. It just wasn't fair. He had taught her to play chess, and she could beat him practically every time! "No... wait... I can..." He studied what moves were available to him... "You are way too good at this game."

"Maybe it's just that you were a good teacher," she suggested.

"I just taught you the moves. You're the one who comes up with the strategy," he told her as he reset the board. "Best two out of three?"

"Sure."

Jon made the first move and watched as Jennifer countered. Interesting...she wasn't making an aggressive move in response. Perhaps she was trying to lull him into a sense of false security?

"How are the repairs to the ship coming along?"

"I've got the major repairs completed. It's just another gaping hole in the hull that needs patching up. That's the fourth time in two months Soaron's blasted a hole in the hull. Sometimes, it feels like I'm spending more time in the landing bay repairing her than doing anything else."

That was true. There had been a few occasions when Jon had found her sitting in the pilot's seat, exhausted, fast asleep with her spanner balanced in her lap and some piece of circuitry almost falling out of her hand. Soaron's attacks were becoming more frequent and ultimately more violent when they clashed. If they only had a cloaking device... but a ship that small couldn't harbor the power resources needed to operate such a mechanism.

"Maybe we need to build another jumpship," Jon suggested as he moved another chess piece. He needed to distract her just a little, just enough to make a wrong move. "You know, to use as a back-up when the main ship is damaged."

"You'd make the ship we have now jealous." She countered his move easily. "She has feelings, pride, a bit of an ego," she teased back.

"Maybe," he found an opening and moved a chess piece there. "Maybe if you ever name our current jumpship, getting a new ship and not naming it wouldn't make the one we have now jealous?" Distracting her was not working like he planned.

She moved her chess piece in position. "Check. And you're making fun of my ship because I haven't named it yet, aren't you?"

Jon thought he might be in a little trouble until he noticed she was grinning. "Maybe just a little. And you don't have me in check yet. Watch." He moved another piece.

"Interesting move," Jennifer thought for a moment before moving another chess piece. "So tell me about your double. What was he like?"

Ah, so now she was trying to distract him with the discovery of their latest mission. "He had a similar voice but not a similar style of speaking. He could fit my general description but he didn't look like me -- dark hair, same color eyes, tall, but that's about all. We had the same uniform but his wasn't blaster-proof. He was an overunit but he didn't look like a Dread Youth though."

That definitely got her attention on the story and away from the chess game. "What do you mean?"

Jon thought for a moment. "It was partly the hair and the eyes, but there was something else. It's like he wasn't behaving in a military manner."

That made sense to her. "Then he wasn't raised in the Dread Youth," she told him. "For whatever reason, all Dread Youth soldiers fit the same general profile with blonde hair and gray eyes. Your double was probably an older volunteer who worked his way up through the ranks or did something that got Dread's attention and was appointed as an Overunit instead of earning the position."

"That must be what he meant," Jon moved another chess piece to what he hoped was a secure location. "He said he was Lord Dread's favorite, and I'd pay if I harmed him. I wasn't aware that Dread played favorites?"

"He has favorites all the time. He needs a particular soldier for a particular long-term mission, then that soldier becomes his favorite for a time with all the privileges and extras that go along with the distinction. Once the mission is over, Dread sends them somewhere very important, telling them that the assignment is vital to his plans and he can't trust anyone else with it. The soldier goes away and is never seen or heard from again." She frowned as she studied the move Jon made. She studied the board intently, forming her next plan of action. "Personally, I think he gives them to Overmind just to get them out of the way." Jon was setting up the board so her pieces would have to chase his instead of trapping them...

"Soaron digitized him," Jon watched as Jennifer studied his chess moves, "so if Dread isn't happy with him..."

"He'll find out that the Machine has teeth," Jennifer told him as she made her move.

She is good, Jon thought to himself. How was he going to counter that move?

Admiringly, he noted that she was more than just good at chess. She was good at learning about life and adapting to it. She rolled with the punches, and the worse things got, the more she didn't let it beat her. This adventure showed Jon something he had never considered before. He'd seen it, he'd witnessed it, and he had no idea that he had not understood it. Until now. He had walked a mile in her shoes or so the saying went.

He moved another chess piece, hoping that it was a wise move. "You know, I never realized how hard it was for you when you first joined us, especially when we would go to some of the outposts."

She was somewhat surprised at the sudden change of topic. "What do you mean?" She countered his move without looking at the board.

"The way people treated you then." He looked into her eyes. "When those townspeople thought I was the one who had betrayed them, they hated me because they thought I was someone or something else. They would have killed me for revenge because of what they thought I'd done to them. I couldn't make them understand that it wasn't me, that it had to be someone else. There was a lot of anger directed at me for something I didn't do. I can't imagine how you dealt with so much more than that time and again. Some of the people we were trying to help then were downright hostile to you just because you looked like the other Dread Youth soldiers, and you never once let it get to you. You went in, accomplished the mission and I know it had to have bothered you. I just didn't know how much." He pressed a button on the computer and made another chess move. "That took a strength and courage I've never seen before."

Jennifer sat back and stared at the monitor, contemplating her next move. "There was nothing courageous about it. I deserved what I got. I couldn't blame them or hate them for being so angry with me. The Dread Youth did horrible things everywhere they went. I was a convenient target. They had every reason to not want me there. I had to prove to everyone including myself that I was Jennifer Chase, a Resistance fighter and not Youth Leader Chase anymore, if I was ever really Youth Leader Chase."

Jon had often wondered Jennifer viewed those years now that she knew herself better. She would talk a little more about personal topics during their impromptu chess games, so it was during those times that Jon could learn more about her. It was one of the reasons he enjoyed their games so much. "Maybe you only held the rank, not the position," he posed.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"

What did he mean? How could he phrase his answer? "Everything you learned in the Dread Youth -- discipline, leadership, command, electronics, flying, logical thinking -- all of it allowed you to become the youngest Youth Leader ever, but that didn't mean it taught you how to be like a Machine. You still felt and empathized with others. I think that even though you held the rank of Youth Leader, you never gave up your humanity, and that's what you would have had to do to be a real Youth Leader. You didn't have to prove to anyone that you weren't Youth Leader Chase. You just had to prove that you weren't a Dread Youth, and you did that every day with the Resistance."

"Maybe." She had a hard time accepting that she had proven that she wasn't a Dread Youth. Now, Jon understood a little better. Like with the imposter, no matter how much he protested or proved that he hadn't betrayed those townspeople, there would still be those who thought he'd deceived them and would always harbor some small element of doubt. It had to be far worse for someone who had once been in the Dread Youth.

"I still wonder about Sand Town though, if there was something I could have done. That day --"

"That day proved to everyone that you weren't like the others," Jon said emphatically, knowing how that day still haunted her but not knowing all the details. It was one of the events in her past that she couldn't get beyond. Whatever happened that day, whatever it was she hadn't told him, she couldn't let it go or get past it. Maybe one day, she'd be able to tell him what it was. "You just wore the uniform."

"For most, that was enough to hate me. It still is," Jennifer countered his move easily. "Remember when all of you first found me?"

Jon nodded his head. "I remember." He wasn't going to forget that moment in their shared history.

"The first thing Hawk said to you over the radio was that I was one of Dread's soldiers. I was still wearing the uniform. It was torn, dirty and ragged, and you had to look hard to tell it was a Youth Leader uniform. You didn't give it a second thought. Why?"

That was an easy question to answer. "In all the years I'd fought Dread's soldiers, I'd never seen one fight biomech troopers or not shoot at us. I knew when we found you that you were special. You weren't like the others. Why else would you escape?"

Jennifer considered his words, but just shook her head. "You couldn't have known that you could trust me," she pointed out. "I was a Dread Youth. I could have been bait in a trap or part of a bigger plan to capture all of you."

"Could have been, but you weren't. I can't tell you how we knew. We just did." That wasn't the truth. Jon knew. He knew exactly why. After Hawk had radioed the jumpship and they made a quick landing to pick up the wounded soldier before more biomechs could arrive, Jon saw her eyes. They weren't the emotionless, soulless eyes Jon had seen in other Dread troops. There was pain she was trying not to admit, fear that she was trying not to accept and utter surprise that anyone would be concerned about her. Those weren't the eyes of someone who was 'of the Machine.' Those were the eyes of someone who had just discovered their humanity.

Jennifer seemed to consider his words. Before, she couldn't have understood anyone wanting to help a person because it was the right thing to do. Now, after a few years with the team, the desire to help those in need burned strong in her. The young woman they had rescued from the biomechs had traveled a long way from confusion to commitment. Every day, Jon saw her determination exercise itself in everything she did.

"Well, there's one thing you couldn't have known," she told him.

"What's that?"

Jennifer made one final move on the chessboard. "Checkmate."

"What? No! Wait... There is... I..." He saw she had beaten him again, calmly, easily, and he hadn't even seen it coming. Did he mention that not only was she determined but also ruthless at times?

He hit the reset button on the computer. "Best three out of five?"

 

The End


End file.
